


Roots

by StripedScribe



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Flowers, Hanahaki Disease, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-12 04:07:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28879209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StripedScribe/pseuds/StripedScribe
Summary: There were flowers, all across Hell’s Kitchen. Petals scattered on rooftops, leaves abandoned in alleyways. Varying shades of pink, their soft petals soon wasting away under the elements.The vigilante Daredevil didn’t speak anymore.For Bad Things Happen Bingo [Damaged Vocal Cords]
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2117874
Comments: 6
Kudos: 22





	Roots

There were flowers, all across Hell’s Kitchen. Petals scattered on rooftops, leaves abandoned in alleyways. Varying shades of pink, their soft petals soon wasting away under the elements.

The vigilante Daredevil didn’t speak anymore. His mere presence enough to stop crime in it’s tracks, a threat in the way he moved and fought. His gradual silence hadn’t gone unnoticed, the streets speculating over the reason, an injury, an illness. There were those who claimed to have caused it, those who had fought him, damaging his neck, damaging vocal cords. And those who thought themselves closest to the truth, that this was a mere copycat, that speaking would reveal he wasn’t the real Devil, that the real Devil was dead, buried under Midland Circle.

There wasn’t anyone close to him outside the suit anymore. No one who he needed to call, to talk to. He would live, and die on these streets, squatting in abandoned buildings, sleeping through the day, fighting at night. It wasn’t that he couldn’t speak, but it triggered coughing, and the slow stretch of flowers in his lungs. As running did, as moving did, but those were necessary, to protect, to defend.

Going to the hospital was out of the question. For one, the cost, and then the questions, and the pity. He’d done his research, he knew what was happening. And he’d spent his time thinking, knew why it was happening, whose fault it was.

His own. For being so foolish as to fall in love with someone who could never love him back. Someone who believed him dead, and for who it would stay that way, protected from harm. Recovering, strangers nursing him back to health in the basement of a church, allowing him to vanish into the night, the protection and anonymity of a church he would never return to. When it was his time, he’d know, would drag himself to where he knew a headstone with his name lay. The grave deserved a body, his story needed that ending.

But for now, it was him and the streets, and the ever expanding roots in his lungs. Vomiting petals on the worst days, coughing up the sickly sweet flowers and leaves. The long stems, scratchy and smooth all at the same time, leaving him clawing his mouth, trying to get rid of all that remained. He tried to meditate, tried to trick himself into forgetting him, moving on. It just brought up more memories, of a friendship turning into something more, a relationship he thought was going in the right direction.

But it would always be unrequited if the other person believed you to be dead.

He’d forced himself for a long time to just ignore the flowers, ignore whatever possible meaning they could have. They weren’t something he recognised immediately, and delving too deep into their meaning was bound to make things worse. He could survive this, he’d survived worse.

From what he knew, they were smaller flowers, long petals, twisted leaves. To anyone else they had no scent, but to him, it was overwhelming, and every breath stank of pollen and fragrance.

Certain buildings he avoided. Learning that getting too close made the stems grow, too long thinking of certain people caused flowers to bloom. Hacked up what he could, when he could, before jumping back into fights, the momentary distraction sometimes enough to stop the ever-growing weeds in his body. As weeks turned into months, each fight got harder. Days filled with restless sleep, each waking moment filled with pain and discomfort. Ignoring the way his lungs shrank, that each day the breaths he took were a little less.

He listened to more than he could help now. Some distances too far, too impossible for him to reach. His territory shrinking, guiding him to places he used to call home, trying to protect those who he still loved. Hiding more and more, accepting, that one day, this would be it.

There was little point getting his affairs in order, with nothing left to his name. With his grave already dug, and his date of the death in the past. He was a living ghost, forced to try and survive with nothing but his flowers.

Some part of him thought he should apologise. Before they found his body, and buried him again. Overwhelmed with pain, he made the journey one evening, each step causing a cough, a flutter of flowers. An awful voice in his mind told him he wouldn’t make it, that he was a man on a wasted mission. But he persevered, small jumps, walking, crawling, across the rooftops. Trying, in vain, to catch his breath, to breath though roots wrapping his chest. Closer, closer, 5 blocks now. 3 blocks now. A distance he’d once pass in a second, now taking what felt like hours. The scrape of concrete against his arms, blood mixing with pollen.

And then it was over, it overcame him. What little space he had left in his lungs, now filled with greenery. Snakes of stems reaching up through his throat, erupting into flowers in his mouth, choking him, stealing away the last of his air. He gasped, clutching onto a wall as he collapsed, landing on the ground. Trying to cough, to get some more air, to just last a little longer, a few more minutes. To have some space to shout for help.

But it was in vain. It was on top of the roof of his love’s building that Matt Murdock finally succumbed to his disease, a mind filled with regret, and guilt.

Around him, the alstroemerias grew, their flowers signifying friendship, love, strength and devotion. Pink, for a friendship that’s grown into love, a way to say thank you, to reflect on playfulness turning into romance. Twisted petals, a symbol of bonding, stability, of overcoming difficulties together.


End file.
